[325] The Second Outing (3)
"This must be the Ice Queen. Pretty, just like the rumors said."
"Eight hundred years ago was an age when mages were branded as witches. In a way, she was a tragic woman."
Amy gave Shirone a short retelling of the Ice Queen's story.
The Ice Queen had originally been a mage.
It was an era ruled by theocracy, so she hid her identity, but her beauty could not be concealed.
When word of her looks reached the palace, the aging king summoned her. He fell in love at first sight and made her his queen.
But living her life hunted by the holy orders let darkness take root in her heart.
Hundreds of innocent people were subjected to horrific tortures and died under the pretext of mana experiments.
The more people died, the stronger the queen's magic grew. The stronger her magic, the more she slipped into madness.
Mages rarely go insane—their discipline strengthens the mind itself.
Yet if, for whatever reason, the mind is shattered, the result is far worse than ordinary madness.
Mind and magic merge, and she loses control of her power.
Mages called this phenomenon mana alignment.
Seized by madness, the queen froze everything around her.
Her chamber, dripping with icicles, looked like an ice cave at the pole.
Not only furniture like beds and dressers, but the maids and servants who tended her were frozen and died.
When the situation spun out of control, the king built a small castle in the Res Mountains and made her its queen. "Queen" in name only—more an exile than a throne.
But even there her eccentricity did not stop.
First she used dozens of attendants as test subjects. When they all died, she began abducting townspeople to continue her cruel experiments.
A year later, no one remained in the little castle in the Res Mountains.
But the queen was satisfied. After long experiments, she had reached the state she sought.
"I will sleep where even time itself has frozen. When I return, the world will kneel beneath my feet."
The queen cast a final spell and sealed herself inside a massive block of ice.
That was the anecdote tied to the last image of the Ice Queen Shirone was looking at.
"Huh. I see."
Shirone stepped a little closer to the Ice Queen.
Hearing the story made it feel real. Even with her eyes closed and in hibernation, she looked exactly like someone who had fallen asleep eight hundred years ago.
Amy finished her tale.
"Maybe even with her mind broken she was tormented by guilt. That's why she devoted herself to a spell that would freeze herself as well."
"That could be. If so, it's incredible."
A mage cannot die by a spell they cast themselves.
Theoretically it's not impossible, but to cast a self-harming spell would require a will beyond omnipotence.
"If the Spirit Zone falters, magic won't activate. Ordinary mages can't even try that."
"Hmm—maybe it's closely related to mana alignment?"
Shirone stroked his chin and fell into thought.
Amy laughed at his unnecessarily serious expression.
"What are you getting so serious for? It's just a legend. It's not even certain the Ice Queen was real. Some say the festival's based on a violent queen from back then. And the figure in the ice now could just be a wax doll."
Shirone knew the Winter Festival wasn't strictly historical.
"Yeah. But it looks so real."
Even Amy admitted the doll's craftsmanship was impressive. As the festival centerpiece, it made sense they'd put a lot of care into it.
Shirone and Amy moved closer to examine the queen trapped in ice.
At that moment, the Ice Queen's eyes snapped open.
"Eek! What—!"
Shirone and Amy instinctively clung to each other and stepped back.
Their screams turned heads among the tourists. Then, realizing what had happened, people snickered.
Amy, realizing she'd been clinging to Shirone, hurriedly pulled away.
Her face red with embarrassment, she stamped her foot and shouted.
"Idiot! There's a pressure plate on the floor. If you step on it, the doll's eyes open."
"Who could've known? And you were just as startled."
"Me, startled? Your voice was the one that was so loud! Men are such wimps."
Shirone pointed out Amy's pale, shocked face.
"Haha! For someone saying that, you're awfully pale yourself."
"…Oh yeah? Want me to make your face even paler? I'll rip your insides out and stew them into soup—see how you like that."
Amy rubbed her fist and advanced. Shirone averted his eyes and muttered, staring at the floor.
"If you were scared, you could just say so—no need to act like a thug…"
"What? A thug? Fine, I'm a thug. What are you gonna do about it?"
Amy jutted her fist out and poked Shirone's ribs. He flinched as his ribs were prodded and flailed his arms, running down the corridor.
"Ha ha! Stop it! That tickles!"
"Where are you running to? Come back here!"
Their voices echoed through the hall.
The tourists barely noticed. This was a festival venue and a perfect date spot for couples.
But three students from Ains Magic Academy couldn't take their eyes off Shirone and Amy after spotting them.
To be precise, they were recent graduates who had just passed their graduation exams.
Ains Magic Academy, one of Creas' two magic schools, wasn't as prestigious as Alpheas, so it had less recognition.
Above all, even if you graduated, you didn't automatically get a mage license the way graduates of elite academies did.
In practice, most guilds will grant a license if you submit your diploma. But compared to the perks top-school graduates receive, non-elite grads' pride was wounded.
"Those two over there…aren't they pretty famous?"
Ludvans nodded toward the railing. Tall and curly-haired, he wore narrow tinted glasses that made him look older than he was.
"Oh my, you're right."
Vivian recognized Shirone and Amy at a glance. She drew her eyeliner sharply, perhaps to compensate for slightly drooping eyes.
Like most magic students, they subscribed to the Spirit journal.
Most pages covered prestigious schools and their students, but sales were higher among non-elite schools.
Prestige-school students didn't need to buy journals to read about their own institutions or rivals.
"Shirone Arian and Karmis Amy. Oh? Zocle, you must know Amy, right?"
"Of course I know her well."
Zocle, the group's leader, pursed his lips.
Short, a bit tousled-haired, with narrow eyes and thin lips, his stubborn personality showed through.
Alpheas had been a painful memory for Zocle.
He'd studied there until he was thirteen, then transferred to Ains Magic Academy.
Before he left, he'd confessed to Amy—and been rejected—a secret Ludvans and Vivian didn't know.
Of course he didn't transfer just because a girl turned him down.
The five top schools like Alpheas attract the kingdom's greatest talents. Ordinary talent becomes fertilizer for geniuses there.
Zocle had concluded he couldn't win the competition and sought another path by transferring.
In truth, many students at top academies don't graduate on time. Judged that way, Zocle's choice could be seen as sensible.
But in practice, transferring from a top school to a non-elite was rare.
Prestige breeds pride.
From students' point of view, avoiding competition to find another path looks like running away.
These students had all been praised as prodigies before entering the academy, so their high self-esteem fed into that attitude.
"Hmph. Prestige and nameplates—it's all show. What's pride worth if you can't produce results?"
Zocle always thought that.
Still, when he asked himself whether he had any regrets about leaving the elite school, he couldn't answer easily.
"My goodness. I never thought I'd see them here."
Vivian had them memorized. When it came to school life, she claimed to know them better than their own families. That was common at non-elite schools—students presented in the Spirit journal were their idols.
"That guy is Shirone. He's the one who beat Dante, who bragged about an undefeated record. And there's the rosy-cheeked Karmis Amy. People say they're a couple—guess the rumors are true."
The word "couple" drove a nail through Zocle's chest. Five years later, seeing Amy still made his heart race, which only made him angrier.
"They're still just students. Clinging to prestige is why people like them fail their finals. Pathetic. Don't get intimidated. We're proper mages."
Zocle's voice trailed off into a private thought.
'We haven't got our licenses yet…'
Either way, he wasn't the snot-nosed kid he'd been at thirteen. He'd graduated and was now following the formal path to licensure.
Meanwhile, Amy had failed her final exam—when would he next get a chance to gloat?
"Let's go. We haven't seen them in ages; shouldn't we at least say hello?"
Ludvans followed behind Zocle in his usual expressionless way.
"Of course—play it like seniors, right?"
Unaware that Zocle's group was approaching, Shirone was cornered near the end of the mezzanine corridor and being pestered by Amy.
"Haha! Okay! I get it! I'm sorry! Stop now!"
"You think that's funny? This is only the beginning!"
Playfully vindictive, Amy kept probing Shirone's most sensitive ribs.
Shirone's laughter burst like an explosion.
"Huh? That voice sounds familiar."
A pretty boy touring the third-floor history exhibit heard their voices and turned his head toward the railing.
From the mezzanine where the Ice Queen was displayed, the scene of Shirone and Amy horsing around came into view.
"Are they on a date?"
It looked like Shirone had brought Amy out to cheer her up after she failed the final.
The boy watched that much, then nonchalantly turned away.
'None of my business. Ignore it.'
He had a personality that avoided meddling in others' affairs, and he especially didn't want to interfere with a couple.
'Where was the antique exhibition again?'
He sipped the straw of his iced coffee and disappeared deeper into the exhibit.
After their roughhousing, Shirone and Amy climbed to the second floor.
An ice rainbow bridge spanned from the ruined wall to the opposite tower.
"Wow, it's beautiful."
The railing's ornamentation showed precise craftsmanship, and standing at the arch's center revealed the ice garden spread across the castle ruins.
Crossing the rainbow bridge to the opposite tower, they found a mini-game area.
The game was to topple soldier-shaped targets on the opposite watchtower—the throwing weapons, unsurprisingly, were plentiful snowballs.
"Step right up! Ten snowballs for ten silver. Knock down a soldier and win an Ice Queen plush!"
Hearing the announcer, Shirone glanced at the Ice Queen doll in the prize corner.
It was a chibi, three-heads-tall doll you could hug, smiling innocently with large, sparkling eyes.
It gave off a completely different vibe from the witch in Amy's legend.